LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 1 




012 079 246 5 



Li J M^Y 



ALUMNI ANNIVERSARY 



COLUMBIA COLLEGE 



NEW-YORK. 



ADDRESS 



DET,1VERE]> 



IJ\ THE COLLEGE CHAPEL, 



4th OCTOBER, 1837. 



BY JOHN McVICKAR, D.D., 

PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY, COLUMBIA. COLLEGE. 




NEW-YORK r 

G. & C. CARVILL & CO 
108 Broadway. 

1S37, 



■A4 



EXTRACT FROM THE MINUTES 



ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE. 



New- York, Wednesday evening, 
October 4tk, 1837. 

On motion of Gulian C. Verplanck, Esq., 

Resolved, That the thanks of this Association be presented 
to the Rev. Professor McVickar, for the very able and eloquent 
address just delivered by him, and tliat a committee be 
appointed by the chair to request from him a copy for publica- 
tion ; and, also, to superintend the publication of the same. 

Gulian C. Verplanck, Thomas W. Wells, and William Inglis, 
Esquires, v^ere appointed as the above committee. 

G. M. HILLYER, Secretary. 



ADDRESS 



Gentlemen, Alumni of Columbia College: 

In accepting the invitation of your committee to 
address you on this Anniversary, it had been my 
hope to find leisure for preparation during our 
usual college recess. In the providence of God, 
those hours of anticipated leisure came not ; they 
were filled with nearer and more painful duties, 
and I consequently am forced to appear now before 
you with a haste of preparation little worthy, I 
acknowledge, of the honour you have done me. 
The past may indeed furnish me with some ap- 
propriate remembrances, and the future with some 
suggestions; though it may well be that over both 
will be cast a shadow, more in accordance with the 
feelings of the speaker than those he is called to 
address. 

The occasion on which we meet is one not only 
usually but rightfully devoted to joj^ous recollec- 
tions. This day at least memory meets us, as 
fancy paints her, " with hands full of flowers." The 
scenes and sports of boyhood — the associated stu- 
dies of youthful friends — the recurrence of that 



eventful day when "brothers part for manhood's 
race ;" the reunion, on this consecrated " green," of 
those whom Hfe and its duties have so lonor exiled 
from its peaceful shades, and who on this day re- 
turn to it with the devotion of pilgrims circhng 
around the ark of their youth, or rather, with the 
gayer feelings of childhood, gathering roses from 
the home of their infancy,— these are touching and 
sacred thoughts ; they come home to our best feel- 
ings, — they awaken our purest emotions ; and cold 
must be the heart, and false the philosophy, that 
would for one moment seek to deaden them, — far, 
very far be from me such intention. 

But, out of this fountain of sweet waters there 
sometimes is found to eddy forth a bitter stream. 
Regrets spring up within the bosom for what time 
has robbed us of, and we look back to those happy 
days with somewhat the same sickness of heart, as 
the tossed mariner does towards the peaceful shore 
from which the tempest has driven him. 

Now this, gentlemen, is a thought alike false and 
dangerous. Not only does it attribute to youth a 
felicity it had not, but it impeaches alike the good- 
ness of Providence, and the high destinies of our 
nature, by giving a preference to thoughtless enjoy- 
ment over rational happiness. With sensitive 
spirits, such day-dreams indulged embitter life, 
and, even with the sternest, they tend to lower 
the moral tone of thinking, and to enfeeble the 
vigour of present action. 



Youth and its pre-eminent pleasures are the poet's 
theme, not the moral teacher's. As men and Chris- 
tians, we are called to a higher judgment, and must 
weigh pleasure in other scales. But are they not 
also, I would ask, the poet's dream ? Memory, we 
must remember, is not always the stern painter ; 
— her scenes are distant ; her tints aerial ; her pen- 
cil flattering ; — and thus she lends enchantment 
to many a rugged and toilsome path. She re- 
calls the laugh of boyhood, but hides the tear — 
brings before us the sunshine or the shade of some 
holiday hour, but covers up the irksome task that 
made so sweet such idleness. 

It is one of the anomalies of our nature, that in 
comparing the present with the past, man always 
overrates his knowledge and underrates his happi- 
ness. The one comparison he answers with a smile 
of derision; the other, with a sigh of regret — wrong- 
ly perhaps in both. He has gained less and lost less 
with the advance of years, than he himself thinks for. 
At any rate, it cannot be denied, that our truest en- 
joyments came in our youth from the same sources 
as they come now, and that from fountains which 
years have deepened instead of closing : from the 
conscious satisfaction that attends the performance 
of duty — from the virtuous exercise of our social 
and benevolent affections, and from the dedication 
of our powers to high and worthy pursuits. Now, 
as these have matured and strengthened, it is not 
possible that our best pleasures can have failed. 



8 

The thoughtless gaiety of youth (if that is any 
thing more than a vision of fancy) may have past ; 
but it were treason to our better nature, to weigh 
that feather of childhood against the golden trea- 
sures of reason, virtue and religion, which enrich 
our maturer years. 

To the virtuous youth, no doubt, college years 
were happy. It was virtue made them such ; but, 
then, pleasure for pleasure, virtuous manhood has 
within its reach higher and deeper enjoyments ; 
and when these, too, pass from us with the current 
of years, religion opens to us in the future a brighter 
vision than was ever painted on the clouds of 
the past — n vision, too, not fading as that does into 
shadowy distance, but growing brighter and brighter 
unto reality. 

Entrance on a college life is to the schoolboy 
like a step upwards in the scale of creation ; and he 
looks down on the path he has left with some such 
feeling of proud contempt as we might suppose the 
new-fledged butterfly to feel toward its former gro- 
velling condition. Nor is this sentiment altoo^ether a 
childish one ; it springs out of that self-respect 
which in every period of life lies at the foundation 
of character. The boy from that day has become a 
man ; he has quitted the dominion of the rod ; he 
has come under the rule of motives, and as he sub- 
scribes his name in the College Register, in pledge 
of a willing obedience, he feels himself clothed w4th 
anew dignity — even that of a free agent, responsible, 
self-ooverned. 



Under this exciting as well as solemnizing con- 
viction, I well remember to have first entered these 
college walls, thirty-seven years ago. The building 
then consisted only of the original pile, and that in a 
very dilapidated state, and the majestic trees which 
now overshadow us, were then but in their middle 
growth. Yet, alas, for the recollections of boyhood ! 
the college edifice seemed to me more extended and 
vast, and the trees far loftier and more venerable than 
they do now ; and the dark confined hall in which 
we were gathered for examination, more imposing 
than any I have entered since. How much of all 
this feeling arose from dread of the trial that 
awaited candidates within it, it were not easy to 
say, — certainly not a little ; for the initiatory college 
examinations were then understood to be pecu- 
liarly strict, and certainly, to such scholars as the 
most of us were, an ordeal not a little to be dreaded. 
The adoption, too, of individual rank throughout the 
class, and its subsequent publication, both within 
and without the college walls, excited to the utter- 
most the fears of the timid, and the hopes of the 
confident and aspiring. It was, in truth, the com- 
mencement of a system of competition, soon running 
into rivalry among the members of our class, that 
terminated but with our four years colleo^e course, 
and one to which I confess I now look back with 
condemnation for its final influences. The praise 
generally accorded to this system is that of awaken- 
ing youthful intellect. Even were this granted, tke 
2 



10 

question would not be settled, for education has 
higher aims ; but, it may well be doubted whether 
in its operation it does not deaden far more intellect 
than it enkindles, by depressing the timid, dis- 
couraging those imperfectly prepared, and tramp- 
ling, I may say, upon the feeble. It stamps upon 
the slow mind the charge of dulness, and under 
that condemnation, consigns the sensitive youth to 
despair, and hardier ones to recklessness of all im- 
provement. Now, not only do these in their variety 
constitute the ot noUot so that the good of the many 
is sacrificed to the few ; but out of them, too, rise up 
often, in after life, our best and most influential citi- 
zens. The "early ripes" of college lose their pre- 
eminence, while the slow and mature thinkers ripen 
into the great and strong minds of the community. 
As an illustration of such a mind, I would venture 
to name our own great Washington: the delibera- 
tiveness, not to say the slowness, of whose mental 
operations was equally remarkable with the sound- 
ness of his eventual judgments. In such intellect- 
ual race as we were called to run, — a race that was 
to be won by speed, having competition for the mo- 
tive, and the palm of victory for the reward, — he 
would doubtless have been distanced by many ; 
while, as we well know, in the race of true glory, 
w^here life was the course, and duty the motive, and 
conscious virtue the prize, we need not fear to say 
he has distanced the world. 



11 

Nor is the evil of such competition only to the 
vanquished ; they who enjoy its heartless triumphs 
are too often destined to feel the withering influence 
of victories prematurely gained, and ambition, un- 
duly, if not unholily excited. I speak not now of 
the sorrows of the ambitious student, of the feverish 
excitement — the sleepless anxiety — the disappoint- 
ed hopes— the galling sense of inferiority — or the 
still more bitter feeling of unmerited wrong — all 
which wither while they stimulate the overgraded 
mind : I speak not now of these as sorrows ; for in 
so far as they are such, time heals them over, and 
they are, or may be, safely forgotten ; but I speak 
of them as habits of mind induced upon character 
at a period when character itself is formed. In this 
point of view they make wounds that time does not 
heal, and give a bent to the mind from which it is 
apt never to recover. Upon the man they leave 
an impress of the feverish and excitable boy ; they 
colour life w^ith all the fretful hues of rivalry, and 
too often, in weaker minds, assuming the malignant 
type of envy, eat in upon the living energies of 
heart and intellect. But take the fairest prospect. 
Look at the ambitious youth as he enters upon the 
world, with all the excitement of successful compe- 
tition fresh upon him. He has been trained to a 
race which the wise and good are not called to run, — 
the race of rivahy ; and when he comes to enter on 
the quiet course of duty, he flags for want of excite- 
ment ; he looks round for praise, and finding none, 



12 

sinks like the artificial swimmer, whose buoying 
bladders have been suddenly taken from under 
him. 

Such is the penalty paid by the youth who has been 
formed upon a rule of action taken from without 
-— " Opinione justi, opinione tantum beati." — Hence 
it is that these hothouse plants of competition fail 
so often to take hold on the common soil of life ; 
and hence too, the equally frequent observation, 
that the best fruits of education, the firm, resolute 
and cheerful mind, the clear head, the tranquil nerve 
and ready hand, belong mostly to men whose youth 
has been nurtured upon a calmer but more abiding 
principle of action, the inward sense of duty. 

In giving this picture, gentlemen, I have spoken 
freely my convictions, as being the result of many 
years experience in conducting or watching the 
great process of education. Within the twenty 
years of my academic charge, many an ardent and 
sensitive youth have I known, thus broken down at 
his very outset in life, by exhaustion or disappoint- 
ment, induced by such false training; and I need 
not add, how painful it has been to see those aspi- 
rants after fame stumble and fall at the very thre- 
shold of the temple, whom nature and fortune seem- 
ed alike to have fitted for reaching and adorning 
its highest pinnacles,* But such instances must be 



* It is proper to add, that the system here condemned in the college, was 
subsequently abandoned. The one now pursued, by adopting the alphabetic 



13 

present to the memory of all ; and I would now 
recall them to the minds of the Alumni, only in or- 
der to gain their sanction to the strengthening 
within our college, of that department of study 
which presses home upon the mind its truest and 
noblest stimulant^in the language of the best 

teacher of morals, ovx avdgconoig alia TOO Qeu) aQBOKSiv* 

But to return to college recollections. — The class 
of which I had the honour to be a member, long 
prided itself upon being the most numerous that 
had ever entered these college walls. Of late years 
it has had the further boast, of being among those 
most fully represented in these interesting " re- 
unions." But time is fast thinning our ranks. — ■ 
Within a few months two of our number have 
dropped from us ; one at home, the other, my earli- 
est antagonist for college honours in the gladiatorial 
arena, in a land of strangers. — ''Sic transit!' 

Among the college professors of our day, was one 
whose name, however familiar to you, has failed 
hitherto m having his academical merits as promi- 
nently brought before the alumni, as have been those 
of his more learned, perhaps, and scientific asso- 
ciates. J mean the Rev. Dr. Bowden, who had charge 
of the moral and literary course. 



arrangement, except in the case of the two highest students, and throwing 
open each department to independent honom's, avoids the concentrated rivalry 
of the old system, and leaves the mind more free to nobler impulses. Neither 
would the writer be misunderstood as utterly condemning all emulation — a 
principle thus implanted in our nature, can be evil only in its abuse. 

* 1. Thess. ii. 4. wj hk avOpwirois apeaKovTES a^^^a tco Qeu ru^ocifia^nrL rag Kap^ 
cias r^jiMv. 



14 

That deficiency of notice, so far at least as aca- 
demic character is concerned, I would gladly now 
in some measure supply ; not only, as looking upon 
such record (to use the words of old Izaac Walton) 
"as an honour due to the dead, and a generous debt to 
those that live and come after us," but more espe- 
cially, as thinking that I owe to his memory more 
than the ordinary debt of a student's gratitude ; since 
not only as a pupil did I love and reverence him, 
but subsequently, as a friend and brother in the min- 
istry, I esteemed and admired him ; and lastly, as the 
immediate successor to his duties in the college 
when death removed him, I am enabled to appre- 
ciate, more justly than others, both the difficulties he 
surmounted and the value of what he effected. 

The early life of the Rev. Dr. John Bowden had 
been one of incident, as his middle life was of many 
trials. His father, Thomas Bowden, was an offi- 
cer, though I know not of what rank, in his Britan- 
nic Majesty's 46th regiment of foot. This regiment, 
which afterwards did good service in the old French 
war in this country, was, at the time of his birth, 
(Jan. 7, 175] ,) stationed in Ireland, where his moth- 
er also was. His early boyhood was therefore passed 
in that country ; though he soon followed his father 
to the colonies, under the charge of a clergyman of 
the church of England. His classical studies now 
commenced, and after due preparation, he was en- 
tered of Princeton College, N. J. But a soldier's 
life was unfavourable to a settled home ; and after 



15 

two years academic study, he was again called to 
follow the fortunes of his father, who was returning 
to England with his regiment. In the year 1770, at 
the age of nineteen, he crossed, for the third time, the 
Atlantic, and on his arrival in this city, immediately 
presented himself as a candidate for entrance into 
this (King's) college, under the presidency of the 
Rev. Dr. Cooper, where he graduated with the usual 
honours, in 1772, being one of a small class of six, 
who had enjoyed in their classical studies the able 
instructions of the president, an Oxford scholar, and 
fellow of Clueen's College. 

Upon the completion of his college course, native 
piety, or the advice of friends, turned his thoughts 
to the ministry ; and after the usual period of study, 
he proceeded to England for orders in 1774, togeth- 
er with his friend, the late Bishop Benj. Moore, 
of this diocese, and was ordained deacon by Dr. 
Keppel, and priest by Dr. Terrick of London. Re- 
turning in the autumn of the same year, the two 
young friends were simultaneously elected assistant 
ministers of Trinity Church in this city. The early 
friendship thus commenced was subsequently long 
tried, and terminated but with death. It was between 
congenial and worthy minds, and withstood not only 
all ordinary causes of decay or estrangement, but, 
what with inferior spirits cuts deepest, marked in- 
equality in professional success and worldly pros- 
perity. Mr. Bowden's establishment in Trinity 
Church seemed naw to give him promise of a per- 



16 



manent home. But war again broke in^ — the re- 
volutionary struggle ensued- — the city churches 
were shut up, and the clergy scattered. Dr. Bow- 
den retired to Norwalk, in Connecticut; and al- 
though he again for a short time returned to this 
city, yet increasing weakness of voice eventually 
confirmed him in his choice of a country parish ; and 
he accordingly continued to labour in the retired 
village he had first chosen, until the year 1789. By 
the advice of physicians, he now resolved on a re- 
moval to a warmer climate, and accordingly accept- 
ed the charge of a small parish in the island of St. 
Croix. Finding his general health, after two years' 
residence, rather debilitated than strengthened, he 
again returned to Connecticut, making his home at 
Stratford. In 1795 he accepted the charge of the 
Episcopal academy at Cheshire, and there labour- 
ed until called to the more arduous, yet at the same 
time more comfortable station, of professor in Co- 
lumbia College. This last change took place in the 
year 1801, and closed the long list of removals in his 
painfully changeful life. 

At the time our class came under his charge. Dr. 
B. was, therefore, in the 50th year of his age — 
though a stranger's estimate would probably have 
added some eight or ten years to that number, from 
the deep furrows which sickness or sorrow, or per- 
haps both, had left upon his strongly marked coun- 
tenance. His figure, though somewhat stooping, 
was still commanding ; and his general air retained 



17 

(so at least it seemed to boyish eyes) a good deal 
of the military manner, to which we understood 
that in earlier years he had been accustomed ; not 
only as the son of a British officer, but having him- 
self held a chaplaincy in the army. 

His appearance and demeanour were such as be- 
came the academic teacher : tranquil, grave and re- 
flecting, with a countenance strongly marked by 
traces of thought, but still more expressive of the 
moral traits of character, of benignity, firmness and 
conscientiousness. The impression, on the whole, 
was that of a man of great resolution, gentleness 
and piety. 

Compositum jus, fasque animo sanctosque recessus, 
Mentis et incoctufn generoso pectus honesto. 

Or, to give the picture in a version which surpasses, 
perhaps, the original, 

Conscience and law in moral bond combined, 

The pure recesses of a holy mind, 

And honour's self within the generous heart enshrined. 

To this general expression, his eye greatly 
contributed ; it was large, open and decided, not- 
withstanding a little nervous trembling of the lid, 
and a strong cast of melancholy, which it retained 
even in its sternest moods. It was, in short, such 
an eye and expression as a conscientious stu- 
dent would feel himself most powerfully rebuked 
by, for it never failed to awaken self-condemnation. 
His voice accorded well with this picture. Though 
3 



18 

greatly broken, so as to be oftentimes painfully tremu- 
loQs, there yet ran through all its feeble and discord- 
ant notes, an under current, as it were, of firmness 
and sweetness, that made it on the whole impressive, 
and I might add, far from unpleasing. This was 
particularly to be noted in that for which he would 
have seemed disqualified, rhythmical reading, which 
often came before the class, from his frequent quo- 
tation of the poets in his delivered lectures. In this, 
such was the influence of good taste, his manner 
was so simple, his sense of the beauties of the pas- 
sage so sincere, and his broken tones so genuine 
and heartfelt, that even his defective utterance came 
in for its share of power ; it created with us the illu- 
sion which Horace recommends, "thefiendum ipsi 
tibi;" we believed that the reade/s own feelings were 
overcome, and ours (I speak at least for one of his 
hearers) followed of course. On such occasions,, 
it was a pleasing sight to see him surrounded, at the 
close of the lecture, with a crowd of eager appli- 
cants, each seeking, with glowing cheek and glitter- 
ing eye, the privilege of a first copy of what they 
had listened to with so great admiration. 

It is true that as a disciplinarian he held lightly 
the staff of authority ; he leaned rather on what he 
no doubt often found to be a broken reed — his own 
well-founded claims to respect and affection. Yet in 
this matter let us do justice to both teacher and pupil. 
It is in discipline, as in most other things, the true 
value is not always to be judged by its first results. 



19 



and more especially in the prosecution of studies 
that bear upon character. 

When the subject of attainment in the lecture- 
room is some present immediate result of memory 
and attention, then no doubt the memory and atten- 
tion of the student are an accurate measure of his 
improvement, and that is the best discipline which 
directs itself to those faculties alone ; but when the 
object to be attained by instruction is rather moral 
than intellectual, to aw^aken, for instance, the native 
powers of taste, or to deepen the conscientious feel- 
ings of our nature, it is not surely then the rod of 
the pedagogue or the eye of the martinet that is 
most effective to that end. The lesson then to be 
learned is one that the heart must comprehend be- 
fore the memory can retain it ; or rather, it is not so 
much a lesson to be acquired, as it is an impression 
to be received, and the wax must be softened before 
it can be moulded. At any rate, whatever it be, it 
is something in which a word of kindness that sinks 
into the heart, a parental rebuke, that comes back 
to the memory in some hour of reflection, go further 
to effect what, in such studies, it is really intended to 
effect, than rules of order that can never be bro- 
ken, or an authority before which the pupil obeys 
and trembles. Such, at least, is the conviction of 
one who, in these studies, was first awakened to 
thought by such parental training, and who, in now 
looking back to Dr. Bowden's instructions, feels that 
he owed to him something beyond the cultivation 



20 

either of memory or intellect. His words were 
those of a wise and good man ; pregnant with in- 
struction beyond the breath in which they were 
uttered. They sank into the tender soil of youth 
like seeds, to grow up at some future hour ; and it 
may be, that the fairest fruits of conscientious in- 
dustry, which the pupils of such a professor have 
brought forth in after years, might be traced, could 
we view the inner workings of the mind, to those 
words of kind encouragement or christian rebuke, 
that then seemed to fall on the ear unheeded. 
Such things may be — " enea nTBQosvra' — words are 
" winged things," and fly, we know not how far. 
It is, too, in the moral, as in the vegetable world, 
the giant of the forest grows up from an acorn, 
which a bird from the hill drops in his flight ; so 
too, no doubt, is oftentimes the germ of the patriot 
and the Christian first awakened to life within the 
bosom, by some chance word, which love dictates 
and sorrow sharpens. This it is, in the words of 
holy writ, to "cast our seed upon the waters," and 
after many days, to find it. 

Such is the picture which grateful memory draws 
of a professor who trained his students by the united 
bands of reason and kindness ; who counted self- 
respect a safer principle of action within their 
bosoms, than rivalry with others ; and who deemed 
himself successful in attaining the great end of his 
instructions, when he had touched the hearts of 
his students by the sense of the beautiful, or awaken- 



21 

ed their moral vision to the perception and admira- 
tion of the fair and the good ; but most of all, when 
he saw, by the willing endeavour, or the repentant 
tear, that he had struck the inward fountain of self- 
prompting DUTY. Though it sprung forth at the 
time but as a trickling rivulet, over which the child 
might wade and scarce wet his foot, he yet recog- 
nised in it the head and well-spring of that mighty 
river of conscientious endeavour,which, flowing forth 
from the awakened heart to o;ladden life wherever 
it runs, deepens and widens as it goes, till no man 
can fathom its depths, or count up the treasures it 
bears upon its bosom. 

These, gentlemen, are plants of discipline, which 
fade not with the academic contest. They ai^e nur- 
tured for the real struggle to which life calls us. 
They go to make not the scholar only, but the man 
and the Christian ; and being rooted in the native 
soil of the heart, require nothing more than the re- 
freshing dews of heaven, to bring forth, and con- 
tinue tobringforth, so long as life endures, the sw^eet 
and wholesome fruits of peace and a good con- 
science. 

Such was Dr. Bowden at the time of my earlier 
remembrance of him. For thirteen years subse- 
quently, he thus continued to labour — bearing up 
against increasing infirmity and repeated aflliction, 
with that Christian courage he sought to infuse into 
the hearts of his pupils ; — and if it be counted praise 
for the wounded warrior to fall with his armour on. 



22 



"miles gladio cinctus," — let not the like meed be 
withheld from the Christian teacher, who continued 
to fulfil, amid sickness and sorrow, to the very last 
hours of life, the high and responsible duties of his 
calling ; rising above all selfish fears in devotion to 
the best interests of those intrusted to his care. 

He died July 31, 1817, at Ballston Springs, to 
which place he had retired on the close of the session. 
He there lies interred, with a tablet, gratefully erect- 
ed to his memory by the trustees of this college. — 
Were I called to inscribe on it his academic eulo- 
gium, it should be, 

Ev cpiXoaocps uxrjfiaTv to Qbiov didaaaojv. 

In pursuance of these serious thoughts, permit 
me, gentlemen Alumni, to suggest for your con- 
sideration, whether our association may not pro- 
pose to itself some higher aim than the mere awa- 
kening, on one passing day, of transient, however cor- 
dial, college recollections. We say, and say truly, 
that to our A-lma Mater we owe a debt of grati- 
tude. Let us bethink ourselves whether we can- 
not repay it, and throw back, as honourable minds 
love to do, the weight of obligation. 

There is, too, resting on us a debt of humanity, 
which each generation owes to that which comes 
after it, to do its share towards leaving the 
world wiser and better than it found it. But what 
with others is only a common debt, with us has be- 
come a specific obligation. Our country appeals 



23 

to us as citizens ; but it is our college that entreats 
us, as her children, not willingly to pass away from 
the labours of life, without doing something to 
smooth the path of ascent for those who are to fol- 
low us. But how, it may be asked, shall this be 
doue, and whei'ein does our college course need en- 
largement ? On this point, permit me to recall to 
you w4iat has been already said as to the value of 
making the sense of duty the moving principle of 
education, and to suggest whether, among our stu- 
dents, that sense may not be made more operative, 
by leading them to drink deeper of the pure foun- 
tain from which it flows. Had we been asked, 
when collegians, what department of study should 
be strengthened, our answers would doubtless have 
been as various as the departments themselves. 
The mathematician would have been for diving 
deeper into the exhaustless mine of analysis ; the 
natural philosopher, for expatiating more widely 
amid the boundless fields of nature ; w^hile the 
scholar, the orator and the economist, would each 
have had his own claim and unanswerable argu- 
ment. An equal diversity of choice would doubt- 
less have been found amonor us durino- our subse- 

o o 

quent years of professional study and pursuit, and 
as before, inclination, so now our peculiar business 
would have dictated the preference. But how, I 
would ask, is it in after years 1 As age advances, 
do we not approximate in opinion ? As we are call- 
ed to grapple with "life's more instant business," and 



24 



its trials or its sorrows bring forth our energy or 
our weakness, do we not then begin to recognise 
in education a new and more distant, yet higher end, 
and appreciate that as its most valuable result, 
which we find has enabled us to sustain manfully 
the sterner struggle of life 1 Gentlemen, I think 
we do. As experience adds wisdom, and gray 
hairs bring reflection, we all come to see life, and 
that which fits us for it, in the same light. Step by 
step our estimate of the intellectual falls back upon 
the moral, while the moral itself falls back and 
bases itself upon religion. Our first views, for in- 
stance, made worldly success dependent upon at- 
tainments ; experience shows it to be more the re- 
sult of character, of probity, honour, truth, and un- 
blemished morals. Our early anticipations of hap- 
piness brought it from without ; we soon find that 
its true sources are within, and that, rather in the 
heart than the head : in the habits, tastes and 
affections that education has implanted, and self- 
government nurtured and strengthened. But there 
is a yet deeper lesson of life, which throws us back 
upon religion, and makes us feel the inadequacies 
of all education that has not laid its foundation 
there. We began with labouring for the world, 
never doubting its value. What shall we do when 
our chief treasure has been "weighed in the balance 
and found wanting." Our tears of aspiring ambi- 
tion were dried by victory ; but the question 
now is, what shall dry the tears of the victor ? 



25 



Earthly weights we may move by the lever that 
science furnishes ; but where shall set our ful- 
crum when earth itself is the weight I do; nod cttw — 
" Tell me where I shall stand." Reason and con- 
science can teach us the path of duty ; but the 
question is, what shall strengthen us to walk in it, 
or restore him to it who has once fallen from its lofty 
and narrow path 1 This is a new problem, yet 
one that life soon brings before every reflecting 
mind, and that must be solved to give peace. But 
how ? w^hat course of study has fitted us for its so- 
lution ? modern analysis cannot reach it ; natural 
philosophy knows nothing of it ; the Utilitarian 
scheme cannot even comprehend it ; the sages of 
Greece and Rome, while they saw it, acknowledged 
their ignorance ; they could but state the problem, 
and with Socrates or Cicero exclaim, " oh p?^ae- 
clarum diem" — " oh happy day" that shall bring 
forth Him who shall answer it. There is, gentle- 
men, but one department of study that makes it to us 
a problem neither fearful nor insoluble, and that is, 
the thorough rational settlement in our minds of 
the truth of revelation. 

Now, w^hat shall w^e say of a course of educa- 
tion that leaves the mind unfurnished in this 
emergency I Are w^e justified in calling that edu- 
cation a sufficient one: nay, are we justified in call- 
ing it education at all, if it have fitted the man 
neither for his hardest trials nor his highest duties ? 
In the decision of reason, we surely are not. Edu- 
4 



26 



cation, without religion to bind it, is to the eye of 
reason, an arch without its key -stone — a race with- 
out a goal — a voyage without a port. The golden 
colours of the evening cloud that fade with the set- 
ting sun, are but a just image of the transitiveness 
of all intellectual glory that recognises not God as 
its author and its end. So necessarily, indeed, does 
religion grow out of man's nature^ — so rooted is it 
in his necessities, and so identified with his best af- 
fections, that the mind which grows up without it 
hecomes unhinged; its moral speculations have no 
starting point ; its physical ones, no end. The link 
is broken that binds together thought and action — • 
the visible and the invisible ; and the mind wanders 
through its sphere as we might suppose some planet 
to do, cast loose from its central sun. To the 
reflecting mind, all the other attainments which edu- 
cation can give, whether of learning, art, science 
or taste, all appear, without this crowning perfec- 
tion, but as scattered materials for some noble 
structure, yet unbuilt; and if life proceed without 
its erection, they then fill the mind of the observer 
not so much with admiration as with sorrow, as he 
thinks of the glorious temple they might have form- 
ed, and were destined to form, to the honour of Him 
whose wisdom, and power, and beauty, and good- 
ness, are so manifestly displayed even in its scatter- 
ed fragments. 

To know and feel this truth in its true force, be- 
longs not to the youthful student ; but we who do 



27 

know and feel it, are we not bound by every tie of 
high and holy charity — by every consideration of 
gratitude and duty, to reflect back that light which 
years have given us, in order that they who follow 
us in the path of life, may be wise through our ex- 
perience, and that future Alumni may have reason to 
bless the hands that have hghted for them in youth 
the lamip of life I Nor let it be said that years will 
teach them soon enough the vanity of the world 
and the need of religion. It is not, gentlemen, the 
vanity of the world, but the remedy for that vanity 
that it is proposed to teach them ; and not the need 
of religion, but the truth and the possession of it. 
This is a different lesson, and one that years no more 
necessarily teach to the irreligious mind, than the 
storms of the ocean teach the ignorant landsman the 
science of navigation. It is the words of a holy Fa- 
ther : '^ true wisdom must be sought after during the 
tranquilhty of peace. We cannot expect to find 
places of shelter in a storm, which we did not look for 
when it was calm.""^' In whatever light, then, we 
view religion, whether as a question of truth, that the 
mind may be settled in it, or as a rule of action, that 
the habits may be formed on it, or as a matter of feel- 
ing, that the heart may be rooted in it, it is still 
equally essential that it be incorporated into the 
course of education. It is a lesson, which, to be 
well learned, must be early learned. In the lan- 

* St, Augustine. 



28 

guage of an old divine of the Church of England, 
a church which has set to the Christian world the 
noblest example of reasonable faith, "man is not at 
all settled or confirmed in his religion, until his re- 
ligion is the self-same thing with the reason of his 
mind, that when he speaks reason, he speaks reli- 
gion, and when he speaks religiously he speaks rea- 
sonably.""^ Now, gentlemen, if such be our con- 
victions, let us act upon them, and no longer leave 
our educated sons to grow up, rich in science, but 
beggars in this better knowledge. Let us, at least; 
lay the foundation of Christian truth in their minds, 
by their being well instructed in the " evidences of 
natural and revealed religion." 'Tis true, our sta- 
tutes have recently recognised this study as part 
of the senior course ; but being thrown on an already 
overloaded professorship, it is evident it cannot re- 
ceive the time and attention it deserves. Let, then, 
our college circuit be enlarged by a lectureship, devo- 
ted specifically to this end, bearing the name of 
"Alumni" for its founders, and the truth of the Bible 
as its especial subject, and embracing, at the shortest, 
the two closing years of the sub-graduate course. 
Such an endowment were a worthy boon for us to 
bestow on the Institution we this day delight to 
honour. Not only would it cancel our debt, but make 
our college, our country and posterity our debtors ; 
since, for every youth whose otherwise unplanted 

*Withcotej as quoted by Alexander Knox in his Remains. 



29 

mind should thus receive within it the seeds of the 
tree of Ufe, our Ahxia Mater would doubtless be 
indebted to us for one faithful son, our country for 
one good citizen, and those who come after us for 
one more Christian example. 

In no portion of Christendom, let us remember, is 
a provision for such study so imperioush^ required, 
either for private virtue or public safety, as in our 
Utilitarian republic. In the old world, each rising 
generation is moulded by that which precedes it, 
and Christian parents beget Christian children : with 
us, the rising generation claim to be left "sui juris," 
free and untrammelled in all their opinions. Under 
the more patriarchal governments of the old world, 
religion is the care of the state, and Christianity is 
therefore impressively exhibited, as well as authori- 
tatively taught ; the result of which is, that the 
Christian faith becomes early consecrated in the 
mind by all those associations of outward reve- 
rence and ancient usage, which mould the opinions 
of youth long before the exercise of reason, and 
are thus, in a great measure, a substitute for that 
direct religious instruction to which we alone can 
look. In our country, on the contrary, whether for 
good or ill, we have no such preventive guards 
against infidelity — no common mould of national 
Christianity ; no pervading atmosphere of a people's 
piety ; nothing, in short, to forestall or circumscribe 
that wild license of ignorant and capricious choice 
in matters of religion, which is so often falsely boast- 



30 

ed of as the charter of our rehgious freedom. It is 
the language of a philosopher as well as poet. 

He is the freeman, whom the truth makes free, 
And all are slaves beside. 

But, thus left free to choose, when and where, I 
would ask, is the truth brought before our rising 
youth, that they may choose rationally and wisely 1 
Government stands jealously apart from the ques- 
tion of Christian or Infidel among its citizens, as if 
it had no interest in the decision. Our common 
schools and academies stand apart from it, as if re- 
ligion were not known and acknowledged to be 
the corner-stone of a nation's safety. Our colleges 
in general stand timidly apart from it, as if the 
youthful mind could grow up to maturity without 
prejudging that problem. And thus it is, that in 
the decision of the most vital question to which the 
mind of man can be called, and one that will be 
settled by prejudice, if not previously settled by 
reason, the vagrant mind of our youth is left 
unguided and unformed — turned adrift into life, a 
pilotless barque upon a trackless sea, to choose in 
darkness its own path, and make in ignorance its 
own chart, and to fight or fall, unarmed, before the 
open attacks of infidelity, or the secret sappings of 
vice. O, gentlemen ! it is a perilous contest that, 
which is thus waged in ignorance between " the in- 
ner and the outer man ;" and looking merely to its 
temporal penalty, may well awaken fears for the 



31 

future destinies of our country. "Tyre of the 
farther West," is the glowing appeal to us of a 
living Christian poet — 

" Tyre of the farther "West" — be thou too warned, 

Whose eagle wings thine own green world o'erspread, 

Touching two oceans : wherefore hast thou scorned 
Thy father's God, O proud and full of bread'? 

Why lies the cross unhonoured on thy ground, 
While in mid-air thy stars and arrows flaunt ] 

That sheaf of darts, will it not fall unbound, 
Except disrobed of thy vain earthly vaunt. 
Thou bring it to be blest where saints and angels haunt ? 

Oh ! while thou yet hast room, fair fruitful land, 
Ere war and want have stained thy virgin sod, 
Mark thee a place on high, a glorious stand, 
"Whence truth her sign may make o'er forest, lake and 
strand.* 

But, to turn our foreboding thoughts from the fu- 
ture : what, I would ask, is the actual result of this 
system upon our educated citizens 1 Sincei^e Chris- 
tians we have many, for the heart makes them ; but 
the well instructed Christian — he, I mean, who can 
render a reason of the faith that is in him, and con- 
fute the infidel upon his own ground of philosophy 
or ill-studied science, is of rare occurrence among 
the laity of our country. Nor only so — the evil 
were less alarming if such ignorance were not jus- 
tified ; but it is. Theology is, with us, falsely set 

* Lyra apostolica, sig. y. 



32 

apart as a purely professional study, and all inter- 
mixture in education deprecated of religious with 
scientific truth. But upon what principle does this 
unholy separation rest I Why should that know- 
ledge, which equally concerns all, be limited to the 
acquisitions of a few 1 Why should not a liberal 
education bring the question of Christianity, as it 
does other questions of evidence, to the bar of ra- 
tional inquiry, in order that when once examined, 
approved and received, it may thenceforth be held 
knowingly, and without doubt or wavering. Why 
should religion be made to stand aloof from that 
true philosophy of which it is the head and crown ? 
Why should revelation fear to enter the halls of 
science, as if knowledge were an enemy instead of 
an ally 1 Why should the Christian be taught to 
tremble at discoveries into the secrets of nature, as 
if the God of nature was not the same with the 
God of mercy: as if the works of God's hands 
could, by any possibility, contradict the revelation 
of his will ? There is something, gentlemen, radi- 
cally false in a system of education that leads to 
such opinions. It is, in the truth, the very scheme 
of the apostate Julian, who forbade Christians the 
schools of philosophy, in order that he might divorce 
faith from knowledge, and cast it into the lap of 
ignorance and fanaticism — well knowing that the 
mind of man can, in the long run, follow no other 
guide than reason. 

To suppose that reason can be opposed to reve- 



33 

lation, is the very corner stone of infidelity. There 
is, on this point, but one great and eternal princi- 
ple. All truth is one, and, come from what source 
it mav, can never be at variance with itself As 
with the rays of solar light, so with those of truth. 
However bent or reflected, they are traceable back 
to one centre ; however coloured, they are still but 
elements of one primitive, pure beam. With our 
limited powers of vision, we see truth but in frag- 
ments, and to them give the name of varied sciences : 
but could we, from some loftier stand, take them all 
in at one comprehensive glance, we should see them 
to be but parts of one great science — but radii of 
one circle, of which nature is the circumference, and 
God the centre. 

Now, Theology is the study that elevates the 
thoughts to that higher sphere, traces that connec- 
tion, and converges those scattered rays, until it 
brings forth from them, by the alchymy of a true 
philosophy, spiritual heat and light; directing the 
one upon man's heart, to inflame it w4th love and 
gratitude, and the other upon his path in life, to 
enlighten, to guide and to cheer him. Faith, rest- 
ing on this principle, could have no fears from know- 
ledge, and education, conducted upon it, would leave 
no room for doubt. The Christian revelation would 
then become to our instructed youth like other 
settled truths, " part and parcel" of their minds, 

" truths that wake 



To perish never. 



34 



and infidelity be to them but one of the manifold 
errors of ignorance. 

To the obvious objection against such an endow- 
ment in our college, that differences of Christian 
faith among the alumni forbid the requisite union, 
the answer is as obvious, that the object proposed 
is the establishment of the Bible, and not its inter- 
pretation ; and as that is common ground to all 
Christians, so may it be made a common interest. 
To establish the rock on which all rest, cannot 
surely be thought to undermine any. In a matter, 
too, of such vital importance, it surely were ill rea- 
soning, to refuse to do any thing, because we cannot 
do all. In youth, the seed must be sown ; in youth, 
the foundation must be laid : other hands than 
ours may reap the harvest, other workm.en erect the 
superstructure, but still we must do our part, or the 
harvest will, in all likelihood, be one of tares, and 
the structure one not founded on a rock. Let us 
remember, too, that vice and infidelity will be at 
work in fixing the principles of our youth, if re- 
ligion is not ; their restless spirits will not lie idle. 
It is a teeming soil, which will shoot up with weeds, 
if not set with wholesome plants. Of the neglect 
of other sciences, the only penalty may be igno- 
rance — of religion it is not io^norance, but unbe- 
lief Principles of action the mind must have, 
be they right or wrong. The mystic volume of 
nature it i^i// interpret blindly or wisely, and, left to 
its own dark musings, may spell out atheism, mate- 



35 

rialism, or infidelity, instead of a God of infinite 
wisdom, power, goodness and mercy. Nor is it 
here only that their danger lies. Without the 
lights of a true Theology, no academic study but 
has its dangers. Devoid of it, the astronomer loses 
God in the infinite — the experimentalist in the 
atom : the geologist finds infidelity in rocks ; and 
the antiquarian, in heathen temples. Even classi- 
cal and moral studies become a snare, and the lofty 
aspirations of Plato, the noble ethics of Cicero, and 
the half Christian teaching of Seneca, are made to 
cast into the shade man's need of revelation, and to 
sanctify, as it were, the causeof infidelity, by clothing 
it in feelings of admiration for all that is lofty, and 
pure, and eloquent, in heathen wisdom. Now, a 
true Theology reconciles these jarring conclusions, 
reclaims these floating wrecks of paradise, — " rari 
nantes in gurgite vasto," — and under the guidance 
of revelation, reconstructs the broken ark of man's 
safety ; showing, in the words of Locke, " reason to 
be natural revelation, and revelation superhuman 
reason." How, then, shall we not acknowledge 
Theology as a necessary link in every scheme of 
liberal education, or rather, as its binding circle, 
which holds together the otherwise loose elements, 
and gives them strength and value : its golden 
thread, I may say, which, pervading every study, 
weaves into one harmonious tissue the varied web 
of science, fitting it, if I may use such a phrase, to 



36 

be a royal robe to the soul of man, that lord and 
priest of nature, that redeemed inheritor of the sky. 
But there is a further and closing consideration, 
that brings the subject of the " Evidences" not only 
within the general limits of education, but specifi- 
cally within the walls of a college. The truth of 
the Bible is a question of evidence cumulative : not 
only does its testimony come from every quarter 
of human knowledge, but it grows and advances 
with it. It stands, therefore, among the sciences 
of progressive discovery : day by day its limits are 
enlarging ; its materials accumulating, and its 
arguments strengthening. There is no science 
but brings tribute to it, no branch of learning 
but bears fruit for it, no discovery, whether of 
ancient or modern research, but throws some new 
light upon it The astronomer, as he watches in the 
heavens, nebulae of light centering into suns ; the 
geologist, as he demonstrates out of organic remains 
the progressive order of creation ; the natural- 
ist, in detecting the edible grasses growing wild on 
the mountains of central Asia ; the historian, as he 
traces up the origin of nations to their common 
cradle ; the philologist, in following up affiliated lan- 
guages till at last they stand side by side, alike and yet 
different, like dissevered rocks which some great 
organic convulsion of nature had split asunder,leaving 
an unbridged chasm ; the ancient scholar recovering 
gome lost passage of Berosus, verifying the Mosaic 
i-ecord; the antiquarian, re-establishing, by means 



of a coin, the impeached veracity of St. Paul — all, 
all bear upon the Bible, and require in the teacher 
as varied learning, to keep pace with the progress 
of science, and to collect, arrange and enforce its 
scattered evidences. 

Take but a sinole instance. Look at the mantle 
of night as it rises from the land of the pyramids 
and the Pharaohs. Is no learned hand, think 
you, required to re-construct the broken temple of 
that wisdom in which Moses was brought up, and 
to question that contemporary, but long silent wit- 
ness, as to the veracity of him who "refused to be 
called the son of Pharaoh's daughter f In the 
days of our ignorance, Egypt was the stronghold 
of the infidel ; its temples were his citadel, and its 
hieroglyphic symbols his prolific armory. " Thirteen 
thousand years before Christ," says Volney, " reigned 
the second race of Egyptian kings." *' Long before 
the Mosaic date of the creation," says Buckhardt, 
"was the temple of Esneh built." "Four thousand 
years before Christ," in the language of Dupuis, and 
a host of other infidel "savans," "was the zodiac of 
Denderah constructed." But now that the enioma 
of its language is solved, and its monuments read — 
now that the voiceless mummy hath found a tongue, 
what answer does the unveiled priestess of Isis give ? 
Even her first lispings were of the truths of the 
Bible ; her broken murmurs have been of the vera- 
city of Moses, and under her guidance, infidelity has 
already descended into the tomb of the Pharaohs, 
and returned believing. 



38 

But, thus is it with the advance of all knowledge. 
Interrogated by ignorance, science has always been 
infidel. It is the deeper questionings of true rea- 
soning that have placed her as a witness on the side 
of revelation — her conjectures have been for the un- 
believer, but her knowledge has ever pointed heav- 
enward. Such is the religious history of human 
science ; clouding itself to-day with doubt and diffi- 
culties, to be dissipated and explained by the light 
of its own to-mo7^row discoveries. In the palmy 
days of French infidelity, eighty scientific conclu- 
sions were blazened forth by its Institute, as con- 
victing Moses of ignorance or falsehood. But 
where are they now I Sunk with the glories of the 
atheistical age that promulgated them, and Deified 
Reason has again bowed its head in the presence of 
Him who was the " meekest" of men. Nor is it only 
by the hand of open enemies that such wounds have 
been attempted to be inflicted. Even professing 
Christians have acknowledged that, in their scien- 
tific researches, " Moses hung a dead weight upon 
them," and have consequently proceeded to ex- 
plain into oriental allegory or philosophic fable, 
(^uvdog) whatever in his language refused to tally 
with their arrogant standard of science. And 
what has been the result I Against the language 
of revelation, no standard has eventually stood — no 
weapon has finally prospered. Amid the conflict- 
ing waves of human opinion, and the varying, though 
onward advance of the bark of human knowledge, 



39 

the Bible still stands forth unshaken, the book, as 
well as the rock of ages: on a level with man's 
wants, wherever he is placed, on a level with his 
knowledge, whatever he knows, with its plain, un- 
pretending narrative, simple to the simplest, learn- 
ed to the most wise — penned four thousand years 
ago, yet pregnant with all the discoveries of modern 
science, and according closer and closer with man's 
knowledge, the further he advances in the secrets of 
nature. 

Now, for what end is it, we may justly reason, that 
the evidences of our faith have been thus attached, 
by a w^ise and benevolent providence, to " the rest- 
less car of human endeavour;" for what, but to make 
that great charter of our faith man's intellectual 
companion throughout the whole of his destined 
progress ; that in whatever mine he delve of human 
knowledge, he should ever be bringing forth some- 
thing to remind him of his higher destinies. It has 
been in order that man may never put asunder 
what God hath joined, the exercise of faith and the 
exercise of intellect, that learning might ever be 
the friend of religion, and philosophy its handmaid- 
en, and the sciences its consecrated daughters, 
priestesses, I should rather say, in the great temple 
of nature, to bear incense unto the altar, and to 
speak forth the glory of the high and uncreated 
ONE, who reigns within it. 

Thus it is, gentlemen, that education can alone 
be sanctified, and the mind of our vouth aroused 



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40 

by its holiest stimulus into its most abiding strength. 
Let, then, our exhortation to them be, 

TSKVOV doQS 
Bsls xgarsvv jusv ^vp T^ew d'asc xgaretv.^ 

To place Columbia College on this high, as well 
as holy ground, by an adequate endowment for re- 
ligious instruction, and thereby to make it one of 
the guardians of that living temple which is the true 
palladium of our national liberties — this, gentle- 
men alumni, were a worthy and a noble deed, com- 
ing from any hands ; but from yours — from those of 
her sons — those who in youth have drawn from her 
breasts the nourishment of life, this were a boon such 
as grateful children can alone bestow, and a grate- 
ful mother alone can estimate. 

* Ajax Flagel, I 775. 



r 



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